Darwin's Spectre

by Rose, Michael R.

• ISBN13: 9780691012179
• ISBN10: 0691012172
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-12-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Extending the human life-span past 120 years. The "green" revolution. Evolution and human psychology. These subjects make today's newspaper headlines. Yet much of the science underlying these topics stems from a book published nearly 140 years ago--Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Far from an antique idea restricted to the nineteenth century, the theory of evolution is one of the most potent concepts in all of modern science.In Darwin's Spectre, Michael Rose provides the general reader with an introduction to the theory of evolution: its beginning with Darwin, its key concepts, and how it may affect us in the future. First comes a brief biographical sketch of Darwin. Next, Rose gives a primer on the three most important concepts in evolutionary theory--variation, selection, and adaptation. With a firm grasp of these concepts, the reader is ready to look at modern applications of evolutionary theory. Discussing agriculture, Rose shows how even before Darwin farmers and ranchers unknowingly experimented with evolution. Medical research, however, has ignored Darwin's lessons until recently, with potentially grave consequences. Finally, evolution supplies important new vantage points on human nature. If humans weren't created by deities, then our nature may be determined more by evolution than we have understood. Or it may not be. In this question, as in many others, the Darwinian perspective is one of the most important for understanding human affairs in the modern world.Darwin's Spectre explains how evolutionary biology has been used to support both valuable applied research, particularly in agriculture, and truly frightening objectives, such as Nazi eugenics. Darwin's legacy has been a comfort and a scourge. But

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	ix
INTRODUCTION	3	(4)
Part One: DARWIN AND DARWINIAN SCIENCE	7	(86)
Introduction to Part One	9	(2)
1. DARWIN: The Reluctant Revolutionary	11	(18)
2. HEREDITY: The Problem of Variation	29	(19)
3. SELECTION: Nature Red in Tooth and Claw	48	(27)
4. EVOLUTION: The Tree of Life	75	(18)
Part Two: APPLICATIONS OF DARWINISM	93	(54)
Introduction to Part Two	95	(2)
5. AGRICULTURE: Malthus Postponed	97	(13)
6. MEDICINE: Dying of Ignorance	110	(24)
7. EUGENICS: Promethean Darwinism	134	(13)
Part Three: UNDERSTANDING HUMAN NATURE	147	(63)
Introduction to Part Three	149	(2)
8. ORIGINS: From Baboons to Archbishops	151	(16)
9. PSYCHE: Darwinism Meets Film Noir	167	(17)
10. SOCIETY: Ideology as Biology	184	(18)
11. RELIGION: The Spectre Haunting	202	(8)
CONCLUSION	210	(3)
BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL AND NOTES	213	(16)
INDEX	229